


not just for christmas

by starboykeith



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas, Domestic Fluff, First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Sharing a Bed, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:41:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29061516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starboykeith/pseuds/starboykeith
Summary: Arthur resigns himself to staying at uni over the Christmas holidays, with his mates going home and Merlin going back to his mum in Ealdor. He envisions peace and quiet away from his father and tries not to think about the sad, lonely meal he’ll eat by himself on Christmas Day.He should have known Merlin — and Hunith — would never let him be alone on Christmas.
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 104
Kudos: 256





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is literally just 'corporate businesswoman goes to small town at christmas and falls in love with a country boy' but merthur
> 
> you can probably tell i really enjoyed making this as british as possible, i'm sick of writing about america and have returned to my bbc tv show roots
> 
> (also i started writing this a few days after christmas 2020 so technically it's not late, just suuuper early)

“I’m not going home,” Arthur says, cramming the rest of the sausage roll into his mouth.

Merlin, who’s nibbling at his festive bake as if it wasn’t his idea to go to Greggs in the first place, whirls around, the whip of his red scarf barely missing a passing shopper. “What?”

“For Christmas,” Arthur says while chewing. Merlin makes a face at him. Arthur swallows and crumples up the paper bag. “I’m not going home. Got training to do here.”

“You know the rest of your team will be going home, right?”

Arthur knows. It’d come up the night before at the pub, everyone shouting over each other in an attempt to organise training after the holidays. It had been Leon’s quiet suggestion that they should make an availability spreadsheet, and after much jeering, Arthur had gone home and done exactly that. He’d managed to avoid talking about his own Christmas plans, an easy enough feat with eleven people competing for conversation space, but he should have known it wouldn’t be as simple to dodge Merlin.

They’re supposedly Christmas shopping, but so far all Merlin has done is rib Arthur about the set of throwing knives he bought Morgana and been no help in deciding what to buy for Arthur’s father. Arthur steers them towards Primark in an effort to force Merlin to buy something.

“I know,” he says belatedly. “I’ll have the pitch and gym to myself, won’t I?”

Merlin finishes tapping out a text. Arthur admires the Spyro phone case he got Merlin for his last birthday before the phone disappears into the pocket of his ragged brown coat. Upon seeing the queue for Primark, Merlin winces and drags Arthur into the small shopping centre instead.

“But you can’t be alone on Christmas,” Merlin says plaintively. Arthur thinks privately that whether he goes home or not, he’ll be alone for Christmas. He loves Morgana, their relationship having vastly improved from the hostility their childhood had engineered in them, but she can’t stand Uther for long, vanishing from the dinner table the second her plate is empty. Arthur would much rather be alone in the flat and cook himself bacon and eggs on Christmas Day; at least it’ll be _peaceful_.

“Don’t be such a girl,” Arthur says, purely because he knows it’ll wind Merlin up and he likes to hear each new spin Merlin puts on his feminist rant. “I’ll be fine.”

He thinks the matter is sorted: after their trip out, Merlin predictably collapses on the sofa with a cup of tea, shoving his cold feet against Arthur’s thigh when he sits down. There’s only two more days of classes before they break up for Christmas and Arthur attends every one, throwing himself into assignment prep so he doesn’t have to think about Merlin going home on Saturday.

Ealdor is three hours from their uni, and Arthur pretends to commiserate with Merlin about how packed the train will be, all the while hoping some great snowstorm will prevent him from leaving. He feels guilty almost immediately, because Hunith has been nothing but kind to him and Arthur knows that Merlin is all she has.

He’s instantly suspicious when Merlin comes in while Arthur is watching the footy, because Merlin hates football and Arthur has kicked him out of the lounge multiple times for providing sarcastic running commentary that mocks the sanctity of the game. He pauses it, because Merlin is definitely up to something.

“What,” he says flatly.

“Can’t a man get a drink in his own kitchen?” Merlin says innocently. Arthur hears him flick the kettle on and sighs, resigned to the interruption.

“Make me one,” he says, and sighs again when Merlin hands him a cup of tea and sits on Arthur’s feet, forcing him to sit up and allow Merlin half the couch. He stares a hole into the side of Merlin’s head. Merlin is trying, not very hard, to hide a smile. “Out with it.”

When Merlin turns, Arthur realises it’s his anxious smile, the terrible one he can’t help pulling when he’s lying about eating the last biscuit. “Well,” Merlin says, and stops. Arthur kicks him. “You footballers are so violent,” Merlin says, affronted, and then the rest all spills out at once. “I was wondering — if you wanted, obviously, and no worries if not! — if you wanted, maybe, to… come to mine for Christmas.”

Arthur closes his eyes for a long moment as he translates Merlin-speak to English. He inhales sharply. “You — what?”

“Come to Ealdor with me,” Merlin says, slower, like Arthur’s thick. “For Christmas.” When Arthur doesn’t say anything, Merlin takes a deep breath and prattles on, “As soon as you said you were staying here, I wanted to invite you back to ours, you know, but I had to ask Mum first because I wasn’t sure we could afford — well, if she’d be okay with it, but I rang her and she said it was okay and — Arthur?”

Arthur knows he’s staring. He doesn’t know what his face is doing, but it’s making Merlin nervous.

“Put your tea down,” Arthur says, setting his own on the coffee table. Merlin obeys, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“Are you going to hit me?” he asks, and squeaks as Arthur lunges toward him and hugs him, holding Merlin so tight they both gasp for air when he lets go. “Well,” Merlin says, never one to let an awkward silence hang. “Is that a yes?”

“I would love to,” Arthur says, each word an effort. So much is welling up inside him, an overflow of gratitude and love for his thoughtful, kind, _ridiculous_ best friend, and he finds it hard enough to express himself at the best of times. He wants to try, to say how much he appreciates it, but the words don’t come. “Your mum doesn’t mind?”

“She said she’d love to have you,” Merlin says. They grin at each other, and Arthur knows then that Merlin understands, without words, how much it means to him. “Train tickets are gonna be well expensive,” Merlin says, defusing the happy moment. “You have a student railcard, right?”

* * *

Arthur had hoped to sleep on the train, but Merlin happily chatters the whole way there. Upon Arthur realising he’d packed his headphones in his suitcase, Merlin offers to share his, and Arthur pretends not to like Fleetwood Mac and pretends that Merlin’s off-tune humming isn’t totally endearing.

With less than an hour to go, Merlin yanks the earphone from Arthur’s ear without preamble.

“Ow, Merlin!” Merlin flips him the bird, looking uncharacteristically nervous. “Changed your mind about me coming?” Arthur prods, only joking but anxious as he says it aloud.

“No,” Merlin says, looking offended that Arthur would suggest such a thing. “Look, I just wanted to… prepare you.”

“For?”

“Ealdor’s not like London,” Merlin starts.

“Understatement of the year.” Arthur watches Merlin twist his earphones around spindly fingers, and it dawns on him that Merlin is afraid of what Arthur will think about his hometown. “Merlin,” he says patiently. “I’m not going to judge Ealdor for being a backwater town in the middle of nowhere.”

Merlin’s face is halfway to a scowl before he realises Arthur’s joking. “Shut up,” he says automatically. “Look, I just wanted to make sure you’re not gonna get high and mighty because it’s a big-fish, small-pond situation. I know you can’t help where you came from, but you better not hurt my mum’s feelings, that’s all.”

Arthur bites back his initial response and does his best to put himself in Merlin’s shoes, something he makes an effort to do whenever Merlin sees fit to lecture him about privilege. Merlin had given him a thorough dressing-down when they first met, and Arthur likes to think he’s become a better person since then, ashamed of the Arthur who’d make fun of people for the clothes they wore or where they did the food shop.

“I’ll be on my best behaviour,” he promises.

He insists on paying for a taxi from the station despite Merlin’s protests, and is glad of it when the sky goes overcast, imagining the two of them waiting under a rickety bus shelter for half an hour in the rain.

In turn, Merlin insists on carrying Arthur’s hold-all despite wincing at its weight, and yanks it away from Arthur when he tries to take it back.

“You kidding?” he says, affronted. “Mum’ll kill me if she sees I made you carry your own bag.”

Merlin fumbles through his bag for his keys, eventually locating them right at the bottom, and they crash through the door with minimal dignity. Arthur extricates their bags from the tangle on Merlin’s shoulder, unloading him like a pack mule, and places them unobtrusively by the door. They take off their shoes, lining them up with the others in the hallway, and by the time they’re shrugging out of coats and hats and gloves, Hunith appears in the kitchen doorway, taking off her gardening gloves before hugging Merlin.

The hallway is really only big enough to fit two people, so Arthur steps backwards and finds himself in the lounge, a cosy room with a sofa and two mismatched armchairs. He tries not to stare at Merlin’s joy at seeing his mum, who’s clearly just as pleased to see him, and looks around the room some more. Uther would call it disorganised, even chaotic, but Arthur thinks it has character, and in a good way — it looks lived in, and loved.

“Arthur, hello,” Hunith says, appearing at his side, and before Arthur can say a word, she wraps him in a hug too.

Merlin grins at him over Hunith’s shoulder, and Arthur tries not to look too startled when she draws back. “Hi, Ms Emrys,” he says finally. “How are things?”

“Oh, Arthur, just call me Hunith,” she says, waving away the formality. “Same as usual, down here. Can I get you anything to drink, dear? I’ve just put the kettle on.”

“Yes, please,” Arthur says, following her into the kitchen and discovering it’s a kitchen-diner. He sits in the dining chair Hunith pulled out for him as she washes her hands, and Merlin hovers in the doorway, mouthing ‘You okay?’

When Arthur nods, Merlin says, “I’ll just pop our bags upstairs,” and disappears, leaving Arthur alone with Hunith.

Without Merlin as a buffer, Arthur remembers his manners and asks Hunith if he can help with anything.

“Mugs are in the cupboard opposite the microwave,” she says. The mugs are as mismatched as the armchairs, and Arthur smiles to see ones that are clearly Merlin’s — patterned with Star Wars and dragons and stars. He picks one of the plainer ones for himself, a dragon for Merlin, and a cat for Hunith.

While she pours the kettle, Arthur leans against the table and says, “I wanted to say — thank you for inviting me. I know having strangers in your home at Christmas isn’t for everyone.”

Hunith tuts at him. “Don’t be silly! You’re not a stranger and we’re glad to have you.”

“I appreciate it,” Arthur says. “And — I’ll pay my way, of course. Merlin said he usually does the Christmas food shop, so I can—”

“I won’t hear of it,” Hunith says, pausing in doling out sugar — two for herself, same as Merlin — to give him a sincere look. Her smile warms Arthur from the inside out. “You’re our guest, Arthur. Think nothing of it.”

She moves over so he can make his own tea — milk, no sugar — and they carry them into the lounge. Merlin reappears, saving Arthur from the seating dilemma by sitting on the sofa beside Hunith, and Arthur sinks gratefully into the armchair closest to him.

“I made your bed up, Merlin,” Hunith says to him.

“Kilgharrah appreciates it,” Merlin says, slurping noisily at his tea.

“He’s not on there _already_?”

“I tell you, he knows when I’m coming home and does it to spite me.” Merlin grins at Arthur. “It’s so weird seeing you in my house.”

Arthur can’t help but grin back, still not over the bout of nerves from being at someone’s house for the first time. He’s met Hunith before, but that was at uni, when they were in the process of moving into their student house in September and busy unpacking boxes. Arthur’s own father had stayed only long enough to appraise the house, a disdainful raised eyebrow expressing more than words ever could, but Hunith had helped them unpack, staying the night and travelling home the next day.

“Kilgharrah?” Arthur questions.

“Our cat,” Hunith says at the same time Merlin says, “Demon spawn.”

Dismayed, Hunith shakes her head. “You’re not telling me Merlin’s never referred to him by his name?”

“Always some variation on ‘demon spawn’, I’m afraid,” Arthur says gravely. “It’s a… unique name.”

“I picked it from a book when I was little.” Merlin’s tone is regretful. “Should’ve waited until he revealed his true colours. Cinderella’s sisters had the right idea.”

Hunith sets her mug on the coffee table next to a beaten copy of _The Hobbit_ , dog-eared halfway through. “It’s business you study, isn’t it, Arthur?”

“Business management,” Arthur says. He doesn’t bother injecting enthusiasm into his tone; no one ever believes him when he says he enjoys it. “It’s more interesting than it sounds.”

To her credit, Hunith tries hard to sound earnest when she says, “I’m sure it is! And you’re on the football team?”

Arthur doesn’t need to fake his interest then. “Yeah,” he says, more cheerfully. “I’ve tried to get Merlin into it, but he staunchly refuses to go anywhere near a football. Or any sport, come to think of it.”

Hunith looks delighted. “You should have seen him when he was younger,” she says. “Nose in a book, twenty-four seven. The neighbourhood boys would come around with a ball and he’d say I was making him do so many chores he was too exhausted to play.”

“Mum!” Merlin protests. The tips of his ears are turning red, Arthur’s favourite look on him.

“Oh, but you were so cute.” Hunith finishes her tea and picks up the book, giving Merlin a hug before she stands up. “I’m off to bed, I’m afraid. Are you boys okay sorting something for tea?”

Merlin nods. “I introduced Arthur to beans on toast this year.”

Hunith rounds on Arthur, as shocked as Merlin had been. “You’d never—! Alright, this is an argument for another time. I’m up at six, but I’ll try to be quiet.”

They say their goodnights and Hunith goes upstairs, leaving Merlin to steal her seat and making Arthur sit next to him on the sofa. “Please take Kilgharrah into your room!” Merlin shouts after her, not quite relaxing until he gets an answer in the affirmative, and then it’s just the two of them.

“Your mum is so nice,” Arthur says, half to himself and half to Merlin. He didn’t really have friends until he started university, most of them friends of habit on the football team and a few that were the children of his father’s friends, and the only sleepovers he’d ever had were in primary school, where making friends was easy as breathing. Arthur doesn’t really know what it’s like to have a mum. He barely knows what it’s like to have a dad.

“She’s perfect,” Merlin says fondly. “We’d better eat something, it’s almost nine already.”

He tasks Arthur with grating the cheese, not yet trusting Arthur with the toast or the beans. Arthur likes his toast well-blackened, whereas Merlin’s toast is little more than warm bread, but Arthur’s not particularly fussy. The cheese is unbranded; Arthur doesn’t comment on it, privately wondering if it’ll taste different and surprised when it doesn’t.

They eat on their laps in front of the TV, but Arthur’s tired from the long train journey and happily accepts Merlin’s suggestion that they go to bed. He doesn’t realise until they’re undressing how bloody cold it is, and Merlin grimaces at him when he mentions it.

“We don’t put the heating on at night,” he says. “Waste of money. That’s why I made you bring your good hoodies.”

Merlin’s bed is a single and he insists Arthur take it, relegating himself to a rather sad-looking airbed on the floor. Arthur is embarrassed that he assumed Merlin would have a spare room that he’d be sleeping in, understanding now why Merlin felt the need to warn him against being an arse.

The airbed barely carries enough air to squeak as Merlin tosses and turns, but it gets on Arthur’s nerves anyway. When he hears Merlin’s teeth chattering, though, it’s the last straw.

“Merlin,” he says gruffly. “Get up here.”

Merlin doesn’t make him ask twice. He slides in next to Arthur within seconds, ice cold and yanking more than half of the duvet to his side. Arthur yelps.

“I meant — topping and tailing!”

“Sounds fun,” Merlin says, grin evident in his voice. “Are you the top or the tail?”

“The top, obviously,” Arthur says without thinking. He holds his breath. Merlin squirms a little, seeming conscious of Arthur’s gaze burning the back of his neck, and then does the unthinkable and turns over, eyes glowing silver in the moonlight through the curtains.

“I’ve never… had the occasion,” Merlin says, hushed now.

Arthur can’t decide if he’s surprised or not. Of course he’d noticed that Merlin never brought anyone back to the house, but he could just as easily have been staying over with other people, as Arthur had a couple times. In the end, Arthur had realised that his attempt to square away his burgeoning feelings for Merlin over the summer had failed dismally, and the few black-haired boys and blue-eyed girls he’d slept with since September did nothing but leave a bad taste in his mouth.

“Really,” he says, and it sounds less like a question and more like… appraisal. “I thought you would’ve…” He makes an aborted hand gesture. “You know. We are at uni.”

“Don’t ever make that gesture again,” Merlin says, and he’s smiling, but his eyes are searching Arthur’s face like he’s looking for something, some condemnation that will never come. “And no. I guess I’ve had the opportunity, but it never went anywhere.”

Merlin had had a girlfriend in first year, Freya. Arthur had been both relieved and incensed that he didn’t live with Merlin at the time, feeling a peculiar desire to know everything about what they were doing together, and the relief had intensified when the relationship had ended after just three months. It felt selfish at the time, and Arthur had struggled to understand why he couldn’t just be happy for his best friend. The only surprising thing about realising his feelings for Merlin was that Lancelot managed to sit him down to discuss it before Gwen did.

Arthur hums. “Hm,” he says. Merlin’s face is open and beautiful before him, and Arthur feels like he’s floundering in open water. “That’s too bad.” Too bad? _Too bad?_ What is it about Merlin that saps him of all his charm?

“It’s okay, really,” Merlin says, huffing a laugh. “Freya loves seeing the look on people’s faces when she tells them she made me realise I’m gay.”

Arthur laughs to cover his heart skipping a beat. He knew Merlin liked men, but he’d never said it in so many words.

“You haven’t had a girlfriend at uni, right?” Merlin asks, apparently determined to continue this vulnerable conversation and apparently unaware that Arthur is drowning right before his eyes.

“No boyfriend, either,” Arthur says glumly, and stops short of telling Merlin about his misadventures in romance during sixth form, shuddering when he thinks of Vivian. His father had been so pleased Arthur had a rich pretty girlfriend that he’d overlooked that Vivian was rude, fussy and arrogant to a fault. “My ex… she was like me in first year, but worse.”

“Worse? I can’t imagine,” Merlin says, laughing.

“I didn’t know her very well when we got together,” Arthur confesses, spurred on by the half-light of the room and the stars in Merlin’s eyes, “and once I did know her, I didn’t like what I saw.”

Merlin makes a face. He adjusts so his arm is pillowing his head, but for one heart-stopping moment, Arthur thought Merlin was going to touch him, and his heart thumps so loud he almost misses what Merlin says next. “Well, I know you,” Merlin says warmly, “and you’re — you’re wonderful.”

There’s an intake of breath, like Merlin didn’t mean to say that, to be so honest. Arthur doesn’t think anyone’s ever called him wonderful before. Hot, yes, charming, of course — but wonderful?

“Thanks, Merlin,” he says, lightly enough that he could be teasing. “I… I think you’re wonderful, too.”

Merlin just smiles at him, breathtaking and making Arthur ache that they’re in bed together through coincidence rather than choice. He reclaims some of the duvet and rearranges the blankets on top so they cover Merlin too, and hardly remembers saying goodnight before he falls asleep, the cold forgotten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments are my lifeblood!! i'll be updating every friday :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> psa: i know nothing about how sheepdogs work so pls suspend your disbelief

Arthur wakes warm, so warm he can’t remember what it feels like to be cold. He frees an arm from the duvet to stretch, and the freezing air hits him like a klaxon wail, shocking him into full consciousness. The rest of him is warm because he’s wrapped around Merlin, clinging to his back like a limpet, Arthur’s knee between his thighs. Arthur lets himself enjoy it for a minute longer before faking a yawn and rolling onto his back, careful not to fall out of bed.

Extricating himself hadn’t been particularly easy: it’s not surprising that Merlin wakes too, producing a bone-cracking yawn and the pop of joints as he stretches.

“Morning,” Arthur says, squinting as sunlight hits him directly in the eyes.

“Time’s it?” Merlin mumbles, curling in on himself.

Arthur fumbles his phone from the bedside table and winces. “Eight,” he says. He’d hoped for a lie-in, but he’s too accustomed to waking up early for training, a habit he will likely only break at the end of the holidays, just in time for uni to resume again.

Merlin groans when Arthur pokes him, and he rolls over onto his back as Arthur starts getting dressed. Arthur doesn’t think anything of it — there’s no modesty when you’re a footballer — until he catches Merlin watching him.

“See something you like?” he says, deflecting out of habit and thankful he’s not prone to blushing.

“No, just you,” Merlin retorts, and groans again. “Fine. I’m getting up. We have stuff to do today.”

“We?” Arthur asks. Merlin had mentioned he had work to go home to, and Arthur assumed he meant a part-time job at Tesco, or the village equivalent.

“There’ll be a list downstairs,” Merlin says vaguely. “You’re showering later, right?” Arthur nods. “Good.”

What Merlin actually meant by ‘work’ was helping the community with a huge variety of chores. Arthur quickly finds himself wearing wellies two sizes too big — courtesy of Merlin’s clown feet — tromping through the countryside in search of an errant sheep.

“I thought you worked at Tesco, or something,” Arthur complains. He yanks his foot free of a sucking puddle of mud with a grimace, wriggling his cold toes to check they’re all still attached. Even with the socks Merlin had stuffed in to make his boots fit Arthur, they’re roomy enough that Arthur fears taking a step and discovering he left the shoe behind.

Merlin’s eyes are bright with mirth. “No way,” he says. “This is a village, after all. Anyway, Barbara does this every year. Guess the cold freaks her out.”

“Barbara is the sheep, I’m assuming.”

Merlin points a gloved finger at him. “Correct. Her full name is Barbara Black Sheep—“

“Oh my god, we’re never going to find her.” Arthur stares around them. The mud is dark, speckled only occasionally by an optimistic tuft of grass. A black sheep isn’t going to stand out much.

“Nah, she goes to the same place every year.” After watching Arthur struggle, Merlin says sympathetically, “Walk in my footprints, will you? You’re gonna ruin my boots.”

“These are your _old_ ones, you said,” Arthur gripes, choosing not to comment on how much easier it is to walk when Merlin’s leading the way. “Where does she go, then?”

“Five more minutes.” Merlin grins over his shoulder. “It’s worth it, I promise.”

“For the hefty reward, I hope,” Arthur mutters, tugging his hat down over his ears.

The field is bordered by a line of young trees, not much more than saplings. When they ascend the small incline, the trees give way to a huge open space, rich green grass bordering a lake as clear as a mirror.

It is worth it, after all. Arthur looks his fill and surreptitiously watches Merlin, too, whose smile has softened as he gazes out over the lake.

“I wish you could have seen it in the summer,” Merlin says wistfully. “It’d be cool if you came to stay again — if you wanted to, I mean.”

“I’m imposing enough as it is,” Arthur says, laughing it off even as his heart seizes in his chest at the thought of it, of summer holidays being something to look forward to. He thinks about skipping stones with Merlin, who will undoubtedly be dreadful at it, sitting on the grass and watching Merlin exclaim over rabbits and squirrels. They’ve visited their city arboretum at uni, but it’s not the same as this secret, beautiful space allowed to run wild.

The peaceful silence settling between them is interrupted by an unmistakable _baa_.

“How on earth are we gonna get her back to the farm?” Arthur asks, spotting Barbara eating grass by the trees over to the left.

“That’s why we brought Doug,” Merlin says. He whistles sharply and the sheepdog comes bounding over, black and white fur much easier to spot. Once he glimpses his quarry, he sets to work corralling the sheep home, and Arthur and Merlin trail behind.

“Can’t he find her himself if she does this every year?” Arthur asks.

“Their range is generally a mile,” Merlin says. “Plus, he has enough to worry about. The Olsens have loads of sheep.”

He rubs at his ears, red in the cold, and Arthur sighs in a put-upon way and pulls off his own hat, shoving it into Merlin’s hands. “Arthur, you’ll freeze,” Merlin protests, but he does put it on, pulling it over his ears and smiling to himself when he thinks Arthur isn’t looking. Arthur makes sure Merlin sees his eye-roll.

“You’d forget your head if it wasn’t attached, Merlin.”

It feels like they’re only home for ten minutes before Merlin’s dragging him out again, this time to walk the Paulson’s dogs. Merlin takes Annie and Beast and Arthur takes Buddy, pleased with the arrangement until he notices Merlin’s smirk.

“What are you smirking at? You’re the one with _Beast_.”

“Buddy’s name is misleading,” Merlin says. “You’ll see.”

Arthur does see. He hangs behind Merlin as Buddy insists on pissing on every tree, gate and fence post they pass, scowling as Annie and Beast trot alongside Merlin like little angels. A squirrel scampers across the path and Buddy nearly tears Arthur’s arm off in his frantic pursuit, yielding not to Arthur’s annoyed shout but Merlin’s comparatively gentle, “Oi, stop it!”

“Didn’t know you were the dog whisperer,” Arthur says grumpily, crouching down to pet Buddy for listening to Merlin in hopes that he won’t misbehave again.

Merlin makes a non-committal noise, leaning against the stile barring access to the trail. He lifts the dog latch so Buddy can join Annie and Beast, well ahead of them already, and Arthur mounts the stile with as much dignity as he can manage. He’d swapped Merlin’s wellies for his own hiking boots, assured that the ground would be better out on the trail, and it feels good to be walking after so long cooped up on a train yesterday.

When they stopped at the house, Merlin had retrieved his own hat, a beanie he jammed on with little regard to his hair and is fiddling with now, using his phone’s front camera as a mirror. Arthur ducks close and gives him bunny ears as soon as he notices Merlin’s taking selfies, resulting in a scuffle that ends with Merlin in a headlock and Arthur laughing as he pulls Merlin’s hat over his eyes.

“Bastard,” Merlin gasps when he gets his breath back. Annie jumps around them, tail wagging energetically as she barks, wanting to be included. She almost bowls Merlin over when he crouches down with her, jeans splashed with mud and his smile a mile wide. Arthur shoves his hands into his jacket pockets, heart so full it could burst.

They’re out for over an hour, walking and talking and chasing the dogs, and Merlin’s cheeks are still flushed when they crash through the back gate, taking their shoes off at the back door to avoid tracking mud through the house. Arthur’s superiority at being clean had quickly fallen through not long after Merlin’s mishap with Annie, and they both strip off in the kitchen, sweating at the heat of the house after so long in the cold.

“Chuck the washing basket down,” Merlin calls, staying in the kitchen while Arthur goes to get changed. Arthur diligently tosses it down the stairs and pulls on sweatpants and a hoodie. He wants a shower, too, but right now all he can think of is hot chocolate.

Merlin’s just putting the wash on when Arthur comes down, warmed even further by the sight of Merlin in nothing but boxers. He almost regrets bringing Merlin his dressing gown, gaze lingering for those few extra seconds before Merlin notices he’s back downstairs, taken aback and pleased that Arthur’s done something thoughtful.

“Exhibitionist,” Arthur accuses as he hands the robe over. Merlin’s no stranger to parading around the flat in his boxers — and Arthur’s no stranger to the curl of arousal he gets from watching Merlin do so.

“You love it,” Merlin says with a grin, oblivious to how true his statement is. Arthur passes him the milk and Merlin heats it in a saucepan on the hob, old-fashioned. Arthur usually just sticks it in the microwave, heedless of Merlin’s protests that it doesn’t taste the same.

(It doesn’t taste the same. Arthur likes it better when Merlin makes it.)

They go back to Merlin’s room with the mugs, ostensibly to work on essays. Arthur takes the opportunity to explore the room properly, having been too tired last night and too bleary-eyed this morning, and Merlin pretends he’s not watching Arthur over his laptop screen.

Merlin’s room is small, smaller than their rooms at uni even, and Arthur had thought those were bad enough. His walls are duck-egg blue and most of his furniture is white, but his desk is unpainted pine, perhaps secondhand. Most of the available floor space is taken up by their suitcases, Arthur’s standing neatly in the corner while Merlin’s is horizontal and spilling clothes already.

The real star of the room is the bookshelf, the only space Merlin really has to display knick-knacks, of which he is an avid collector. The shelves are bursting with books, everything from chick-lit to lengthy political biographies. Merlin’s favourites are pride of place, _Lord of the Rings_ and brick-like Stephen King novels and careworn Harry Potters with cracked, sun-bleached spines. In front of the books lies the treasure, little figurines of cats and dragons, Funko Pops of characters Arthur doesn’t recognise, and he turns his attention to the pictures and can’t hide his smile.

Merlin’s few picture frames are mismatched, speckled with chipped paint, and within them Arthur sees Hunith holding a blue-wrapped bundle in a hospital bed, glowing with happiness even with the infant’s face split in a scream. He sees himself with his arm around Merlin at a Christmas party last year, both of them drunk out of their minds with eyes only for each other. It’s the only framed picture from uni; the others are all clearly from Ealdor. Merlin toddling around in huge wellington boots; teenage Merlin and Hunith in front of Christmas lights in town; Merlin and other kids at a farm, all wearing party hats and clustered around a donkey.

“Most of my pictures are over by my bed,” Merlin says, having given up pretending not to watch Arthur explore the very heart of him. He looks nervous, somehow, as if Arthur doesn’t feel warmed from the inside out, overwhelmed by Merlin’s trust in him.

Arthur obediently crosses the room. These are memories he recognises: Gwen and Merlin on a night out with the English Lit Society, dressed as a police officer and a burglar respectively; Merlin and Lancelot and Leon in the library, with a sticker to cement the moment as 2:54am; Merlin with Gwaine in the pub, a photo Arthur had taken for his Snapchat story because of the polarity of Merlin’s pornstar martini next to Gwaine’s pint of beer.

He laughs out loud. “Didn’t know you screenshotted that,” he says, turning to share the joke with Merlin and startling as he realises Merlin’s already looking over his shoulder. When Merlin turns his head, their faces are almost unbearably close, and Arthur’s heart leaps into his throat.

“I did, yeah,” Merlin says, but Arthur’s already forgotten what they’re talking about. Merlin’s lips have no right to be so pink, so _full_ , and he bets kissing Merlin would be like kissing a cloud, and he wants to kiss Merlin until he pulls Arthur closer and says—

“I’m home!” comes Hunith’s voice from downstairs, and they jump apart as though she’d caught them with their trousers down.

“Ah,” Arthur says.

“I better—“ Merlin jerks his thumb at his bedroom door.

Arthur nods wisely. “Yep,” he says, and Merlin darts from the room like a startled rabbit, leaving Arthur to take a deep breath and wonder if he’d imagined Merlin moving closer.

He has to go downstairs eventually, and he sidles into the kitchen as if expecting a scolding. Hunith is relating an anecdote from work and Arthur pays only half-attention, eyes on Merlin and the light dusting of chest hair revealed by the plunging neck of his dressing gown, tied too loose as usual.

“How’d you like the dogs, Arthur?” Hunith asks.

Arthur finally tears his eyes away and finds Merlin already looking at him, pulling that full bottom lip into his mouth and biting it the way Arthur wants to.

“Loved it — them, they were, uh, great dogs.” He scrambles to regain control of his mouth. “Buddy nearly tore my arm off, though.”

“Buddy’ll do that to you,” Hunith says sympathetically. She’s wearing her uniform, dressed all in navy; Arthur doesn’t think Merlin had mentioned his mum works at Tesco. Must be full-time — but even then, how do they afford to live? “Toad in the hole for tea,” Hunith adds, and Arthur grins.

“It’ll be better than Merlin’s, at any rate.”

“I burned the batter one time!” Merlin protests.

“One time too many, clearly,” Hunith says, laughing. “Oh, and I get paid tomorrow, Merlin, so if you wouldn’t mind—“

“We’ll go tomorrow,” Merlin says. Arthur assumes this’ll be the Christmas food shop. “You go get changed. I’ll start dinner.”

Arthur sits in a dining chair to watch Merlin work, gratefully accepting a cup of tea to warm his cold hands, the hot chocolate long gone. “We’ll be going early, yeah?” he asks. His family order all their Christmas food, and he’s not looking forward to shoving through bustling crowds at Tesco, fighting over the last turkey.

“We won’t get there till twelve,” Merlin says confidently. “Lots of collections to do. And we get our meat from the butcher.”

“Okay,” Arthur says, feeling out of his depth — and not for the first time.

There isn’t much preparation left to do when Hunith comes back downstairs, affectionately ruffling Merlin’s hair and saying he’s too good to her. It makes Arthur’s heart ache, the picture of a happy family, and it’s clear how much they love each other. He simply can’t picture exchanges like that between him and Uther — Arthur feels more like a soldier addressing his captain than a son talking to his father. They don’t chatter inanely about the Paulson’s dogs and how much Kelley’s charging for a turkey this year, and Uther’s preferred — and only — form of physical affection is clapping Arthur too-hard on the shoulder when Arthur’s finally impressed him.

“Arthur, dear, you’re miles away,” Hunith says, covering his hand with her own. “Merlin was just about to get the Christmas tree down from the loft, if you wouldn’t mind helping. My knees aren’t what they used to be.”

Arthur must make the right noises, because he finds himself upstairs, watching Merlin stand on a chair and stick his head into the loft. At home, not that Arthur has much occasion to venture up there, there’s a ladder that swings down from the loft door. Merlin’s method seems to be based on everything being in arms-reach and chucking boxes down at the unfortunate soul beneath him. Arthur stacks them neatly at first, but quickly gives up, and by the time Merlin’s yanked out the Christmas tree, his arms feel ready to fall off.

They eat dinner at the table this time, something Arthur is more accustomed to, but it feels more like having their friends over at uni, nothing like the stilted, distant dinners he has with Uther and Morgana.

He hangs back when Hunith and Merlin start opening boxes, pretending to type out an urgent text as they lift out tinsel and baubles and beads. It’s only minutes before Merlin says, “Pull your weight, Arthur,” and tugs him down to sit cross-legged on the floor beside them.

Hunith exclaims over homemade decorations, holding them up to show Arthur. “Merlin made that in Year 3,” she says, delighted to have someone to embarrass Merlin with. Arthur turns the glitter-dipped pine cone over in his hands, imagining little Merlin making it. “And oh, there’s one I _have_ to show you—“

“Not the Santa,” Merlin groans.

‘The Santa’ is a framed picture, less than A6 in size and made an ornament by a thread knotted around the top. It’s a drawing of Santa, just as advertised, and coloured in felt-tip pen. The problem lies in that it seems like the only pen Merlin had access to was red — Santa has red eyes, red skin and red clothes, messy loops of colour making it look more like a murder scene than a person. Arthur tries not to laugh, he really does.

“I was four years old!” Merlin says defensively, raising his voice to be heard above the laughter. Arthur dramatically wipes a tear from his eye, and Merlin elbows him, cheeks as red as his Santa magnum opus. “One of these days I’m gonna throw it away.”

“Merlin, you’re the most sentimental person I’ve ever met,” Arthur says immediately. “You’ll keep that Santa forever.”

Arthur has precious little from his own childhood; Uther never fostered sentimentality, so Arthur’s never placed much value on silly little objects. Merlin, on the other hand, is obsessed with silly little objects; their uni flat is full of them. Here, Arthur knows for a fact that every seemingly innocuous thing on Merlin’s bookshelves will have a story behind it.

“Arthur’s got your number,” Hunith says to Merlin, lips twitching with a smile. Merlin gets redder, if such a thing were possible.

They have the tree decorated soon enough. Merlin only trips over the lights once, the homemade decorations are placed out of Kilgharrah’s reach, and the baubles look evenly-placed, if you don’t look too closely. Arthur almost manages to get through it without letting slip that he’s never decorated a Christmas tree before.

Hunith and Merlin wear identical expressions of astonishment. “ _Never_?” Hunith asks, recovering first.

“My father gets a decorator in,” Arthur says uncomfortably.

“Didn’t Gwaine decorate in first year?” Merlin asks.

“He made about five paper snowflakes,” Arthur says, wry and glad to take the conversation in a different direction, “and taped a string of tinsel around the traffic cone he stole on a night out.”

Merlin laughs. “Sounds like Gwaine.”

Once the boxes are put away and they’ve all got up from the floor, Merlin suggests to Hunith that he and Arthur have essays to work on, and they escape upstairs with a glass of wine each.

They sit on the bed, backs against the wall and laptops across their thighs. Arthur knows from experience that Merlin will relocate to the floor, desk and back to the bed in short order as part of his ‘writing process’. He tries to summon some determination for his own essay, half-heartedly pulling up his tentative plan and staring at it like that alone will produce some work.

Merlin, predictably, tosses his laptop to the side and groans. Arthur glimpses a document headed ‘How does Modernism interrogate loneliness during the fractured first quarter of the twentieth century?’ before the screen goes black with inactivity. “I hate Modernism,” Merlin complains. “This is the worst module we’ve ever done.”

“All my modules seem to be the worst we’ve ever done,” Arthur says darkly. He types out his introduction, finding it easy enough to just rephrase the essay question and spout some vague sentences about his main points, which are nebulous themselves at this stage.

“I know you hate your course,” Merlin says. He sounds thoughtful, which is dangerous for a number of reasons. “Why don’t you switch?”

Arthur snorts. “It’s a bit late for that.” But Merlin’s serious, gazing at him with sad eyes and — oh, God — lips stained red with wine. Arthur starts typing just so he has a reason to look elsewhere, pleased to discover an idea as he does so, following it to its natural conclusion. Merlin’s still looking at him when he finishes. “My dad would kill me,” Arthur says with a sigh. “And I see the logic in doing a business degree. It _will_ be helpful for my future.”

“But you don’t enjoy it.”

“Doesn’t matter whether I enjoy it,” Arthur says, getting annoyed at this painful line of questioning. Merlin has always had a talent for poking him where it hurts, whether he’s trying to help or not. “There’s nothing I can do about it, so I might as well try my best.”

He avoids Merlin’s eyes, angry at the pity he’d probably find there. He doesn’t think about what degree he might have done if he’d had the choice, because that train of thought leads to nothing but pain. Merlin eventually retrieves his laptop, fetching a sheaf of paper from his overflowing folder and rustling through his handwritten notes.

They work in companionable if tense silence, which is broken when Hunith comes up to bed, popping her head around the door to say goodnight. Once she’s gone, her bedroom door clicking shut across the hall, Arthur finally manages to catch Merlin’s eye and gives him a small smile. Merlin grins back, looking relieved, and immediately sets to chattering, informing Arthur that he hates T.S. Eliot and has gotten waylaid on JSTOR by more interesting academic papers.

“I didn’t think you hated any books,” Arthur says. He drums impatiently on his keyboard; Merlin’s wi-fi is much slower than he’s used to, and he needs to do more research. “What did Eliot ever do to you?”

“What hasn’t he done to me, is a better question,” Merlin mutters. “Modernism is unbearable. Bunch of old white guys stealing old texts and calling it _allusion_ rather than plagiarism. And you know what else—”

Arthur hides his smile, painting a serious expression on his face and nodding along, secretly thrilled to watch Merlin talk at length about something he’s passionate about. Merlin talks with his hands, waving them about as he bemoans the elitism of the Modernist movement. (He pays attention to the words, too, because Merlin’s rants are a sight to behold, language getting more and more elaborate as he works himself up.)

Not for the first time, Arthur wants to kiss him. Wants to stop Merlin right in the middle of his sentence and silence him with a kiss, until the only noise Merlin can make is moaning for more, until the only word he can say is Arthur’s name.

There are plenty of reasons why he should, and even more reasons why he shouldn’t. Arthur is scared everything will change, that Merlin will gently (and probably tactlessly) say they should remain just friends. Then there’ll be a tension hanging between them in the flat, at the pub, with their friends — who will probably feel the need to choose between them when Merlin can’t bear to hang out with him anymore, and Arthur will be alone again, just like he was always supposed to be.

“You okay?” Merlin asks, his well of contempt for Modernism having run dry at last. “You’re looking at me funny.”

“I’m, you know,” Arthur says, shoving down his panic about being caught out, “thinking about T.S. Eliot.”

He gets about halfway through his essay before Merlin starts exaggerating his yawns. Merlin doesn’t appear to have done any work himself, but Arthur’s fallen into this trap before: Merlin complains about his essay until the last second, then pulls two thousand words out of nowhere and stuns his teachers.

They get ready for bed as if in a daze, shocked by the reminder that uni still exists at Christmas. Arthur vigorously towels his hair dry after his shower and Merlin gets another pillow out of the airing cupboard, muttering something about wet dogs. They switch sides, with Arthur closer to the wall this time, because Merlin argues that he’ll be the one getting up first.

“Like you were this morning?” Arthur says. He presses his cold feet to Merlin’s calves just to hear him yelp. There’d been no discussion this evening of one of them sleeping on the floor and Arthur is glad, because there’s a heart-stopping comfort in being together like this, so close it doesn’t feel real.

“I’m setting an alarm,” Merlin says, mulish. 

Despite using the torch on his phone, Merlin still manages to trip over something, and Arthur laughs as Merlin slides in carefully beside him. It feels like everything and nothing has changed, their very own time capsule away from uni. Arthur almost doesn’t want to go back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> merlin's essay title? i actually wrote that essay in second year of my english degree and in this house we hate modernism :)
> 
> is he... you know... thinking about t.s. eliot?


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’ve been informed by my american friend that the last chapter was egregiously british and i’m very happy about that. i WOULD try to describe the meal ‘toad in the hole’ to you but it’s genuinely impossible

Hunith is off work the next day, so the car is free. From the moment he fastens his seat belt, Arthur knows he should’ve insisted on driving.

“I’ve had my license longer than you,” Merlin argues, turning to glare at Arthur.

“God knows how,” Arthur snaps back, and sucks in a breath when a rabbit runs across in front of them. Merlin slams on the brakes so hard they’re propelled forwards in their seats. “ _Mer_ lin!”

Merlin scowls at him before turning his attention back to the road. “Stop distracting me.”

They make it to the butchers in one piece. As they’re about to go in, Merlin stops with his hand on the door and says, “Don’t believe anything I say in there.”

“O-kay?” Arthur says, bemused.

He quickly understands. Once inside, Merlin greets the butcher by name, engages in the usual family catch-up, and then, listing off the meat he's after, begins a monologue about how hard it’s been for him and his poor mum.

Arthur barely manages to stop his eyes going wide at some of the bullshit Merlin spouts, pretending to closely examine the wares so he doesn’t give anything away.

“Twenty quid for _that_?” Merlin says dismissively. “Don’t you know I’ve got an extra mouth to feed?”

“Oh yeah?” Kelley asks, his mouth a grim line.

“Yeah,” Merlin says, as if he can’t believe Arthur’s infringing on him like this, and jerks a thumb at Arthur. “A great big one.”

He knows what Merlin is doing, having watched him haggle furiously at the farmer’s market at uni many times, but it doesn’t make his theatrics any less funny. Arthur hastily turns a laugh into a cough, speared by the butcher’s beady gaze and amazed by Merlin’s audacity.

Arthur assumes there’s no love lost between Merlin and Kelley, so he’s surprised to hear laughter, the act broken when Merlin says pitifully, “Do you want us to _starve_?”

Humour transforms Kelley’s stern face, his brooding demeanour turned jolly in an instant. “Have it then, ya wee bastard,” he says, bagging up the last of the sausage meat. “Give Hunith my best, y’hear?”

They load it into the boot, where it’ll be kept cool until everything else has been collected. Arthur gathers that they’re collecting carrots, potatoes and sprouts from various people around the area. He’s surprised to recognise them — the Olsens, the Paulsons — and realises that they’re paying Merlin in food for the work he does.

“Only at Christmas,” Merlin explains when Arthur asks him, heaving a crate of potatoes onto the backseat. “Just makes things a bit easier on Mum and me. They pay me cash in the summer.”

Their last pickup is from a family Arthur hasn’t met yet, a handsome older couple with stables visible on the grounds from their cottage. “Are you still available tomorrow, Merlin?” one of the men asks. “I meant to call Hunith yesterday.”

“‘Course,” Merlin says, accepting a neatly-tied Tesco bag. “This is my friend, Arthur, from uni. He’ll be along tomorrow, too.”

The men exchange an indecipherable look. “The more the merrier,” the shorter one says. Merlin chats to them a minute longer — Arthur establishes that their stable hands have a week or so off work starting tomorrow, made possible by horse-mad grandchildren visiting for Christmas, and that he and Merlin will be mucking out God knows how many stables at the crack of dawn on Christmas Eve.

He isn’t dreading it, strangely enough; at least this is something he _can_ do, and not just another thing Merlin has to instruct him in. Uther had always kept horses and expected his children to have a hand in their upkeep, wanting Morgana and Arthur to truly know what it was to have care of an animal. You can’t pay a horse to trust and love you, but you can be the person who keeps it clean and fed.

They stop at home to drop off all the goods, Merlin assuring Arthur that Hunith would prefer to arrange the food storage herself.

“Where is she?” Arthur asks, noting from the wall clock that it’s already gone eleven and she hasn’t yet been down and made herself a cup of tea, unheard of in the Emrys household.

Merlin shrugs, glancing at Arthur’s face and looking away just as quickly. “She has bad days,” is all the explanation he gives, and Arthur resolves not to push.

Hunith has left a shopping list, though, and they pile in the car once more and drive to Tesco, further away than Arthur expected. He hadn’t known some communities were so dependent on farming for their livelihood.

“It’s mostly party food and optional extras, whatever we couldn’t get back home,” Merlin says, skim-reading with one hand on the trolley. “Oh, and she wanted me to ask if you had any traditions or any particular food you wanted. We usually get After Eights and Quality Street.” He notices the minuscule shift in Arthur’s expression. “I swear to God, if you say caviar—“

“I don’t even like caviar,” Arthur says petulantly. Merlin wrinkles his nose. “And not really. Just cheese and crackers, if I had to pick something.”

Merlin entrusts Arthur with the list, finally getting moving. The store is alight with Christmas buzz, almost cheerful enough to distract from just how many people are milling around. Arthur’s glad they got their meat at the butchers, looking at the crowd gathered around the turkey section.

“I’ll pay for them, though,” he adds, hopefully offhandedly enough to trick Merlin into agreeing. “And let me get the sweets, will you?”

“You’re the guest, Arthur,” Merlin reminds him, a phrase which apparently has magical powers to most people and seems designed to make Arthur feel useless.

“I feel guilty,” Arthur says, glad to finally get it off his chest. “Please.”

They pass the flowers at the front of the store while Merlin’s thinking of a reply. Merlin stops, as Arthur knew he would, and lovingly touches the petals. “Mum loves poinsettias,” he says, an innocuous comment that Arthur is all too quick to pounce on, scooping up one of the plants and placing it carefully in the trolley. Merlin doesn’t argue, his face breaking into that fond smile he wears when he sees something sweet, like a toddler dancing to music on the high street, or a particularly adorable cat video. It takes Arthur’s breath away to have it directed at him.

Arthur manages to pay for the cheese, if not the crackers, along with the poinsettia and half of the sweets, pleased to be able to offer something when Hunith and Merlin have already given him so much. He’d made sure to buy Hunith a Christmas present, with Merlin’s help, but he figures that’s kind of a given, so it doesn’t count. He isn’t used to owing people, and it’s difficult to remember that people really can do nice things for him without selfish motives or expectation of reward.

Hunith is up when they get home, already putting the collected vegetables away, and waves away their offers of help, though she pauses when Arthur carries in the poinsettia, her smile so like Merlin’s. “Aren’t you sweet,” she says, genuinely touched, and gives him a hug. Arthur relaxes into it, her delight and the comfort of affection settling warm behind his ribs.

“It’s the least I can do,” he says when she draws back, clearing his throat. “If you’re sure I can’t give you anything towards me being here.”

“I’m sure, my dear,” Hunith says, opening the fridge to begin unloading the shopping bags.

Merlin slams the front door behind him, staggering into the kitchen with bags looped all the way up his wrists, and rolls his eyes at Arthur. “Thanks for the help,” he says mockingly.

“Arthur’s the guest,” Hunith says on cue.

“Yeah, I’m the guest,” Arthur says, acting wounded. Merlin flips Arthur the bird when his mum’s back is turned.

After the shopping’s put away, Arthur brings his laptop down to work on his essay in the lounge, and Merlin curls up on an armchair like a cat, poetry book and pencil in hand. Hunith reads for a while before putting something on TV, pleasant enough background noise to write an unpleasant essay. It feels good to just exist in each other’s space, like an extension of the easy companionship he and Merlin had fallen into at uni, Arthur taking notes he’d missed from the PowerPoint in lecture and Merlin reading with his feet on Arthur’s lap.

* * *

When Arthur wakes the next morning, he shuts his eyes quickly. He’s lying on his back, Merlin a warm weight across him. It feels more intimate than spooning, not least because Merlin is sprawled possessively over him, one leg slung over Arthur’s and his head on Arthur’s chest. His hand is loosely fisted in Arthur’s hoodie.

And his eyes are open.

Arthur wants to hold his breath, to hold this moment as long as possible. They’re wrapped up in each other like lovers, like Merlin crawled against his chest and stayed there, making himself at home. Arthur’s hand is on Merlin’s lower back, and he can’t resist pressing a little firmer, holding Merlin rather than touching him. He’d hoped it would be subtle.

“You’re awake,” Merlin says, voice rough with sleep. He doesn’t move. Neither does Arthur.

“So are you,” Arthur says neutrally.

It feels like they’re both holding their breath, now, suspended in this moment. Arthur looks down at Merlin, whose dark hair is going every which way, long eyelashes casting shadows over his cheeks. It’s not an unconscious movement when Arthur takes Merlin’s hand, interlocking their fingers and keeping their joined hands there. It’s purposeful, deliberate.

Merlin doesn’t pull away, or make any dim-witted observations. He says, “I wish we could stay like this forever.”

Arthur squeezes his hand, smiling when Merlin squeezes back. He raises his free hand to cup the back of Merlin’s head, intent on lifting his face to kiss him, morning breath be damned. Merlin knows it, too, shifting so he has more leverage to lean in, eyes full of something Arthur’s just starting to comprehend.

Merlin’s phone alarm is shrill in the silence, a missile ripping through the air, and they both jerk back in surprise. Arthur’s the one with the presence of mind to grab mindlessly for Merlin’s phone, turning off the alarm with more force than strictly necessary.

He returns his hand to Merlin’s back, albeit cautiously. “Well,” Arthur says, and stops, the spell broken.

“Moment over?” Merlin asks with a rueful smile.

“Moment over,” Arthur says decisively, taking a deep breath as his lungs remember how to function again. “Plus, your breath could knock out a horse at the best of times, so…” He makes an exaggerated face, and Merlin hits him, seeming to realise as he does so that they’re still holding hands.

Arthur has the pleasure of watching Merlin’s entire face turn pink. He lets go of Merlin’s hand to brush his knuckles against his cheek, the skin there soft and hot. “You blush like a girl,” Arthur says, and laughs too loud when Merlin hits him again.

Mucking out the horses isn’t too traumatic, and it goes quicker working together. Things had returned to normal once they’d gotten out of bed, the place they felt safe to nurture this gentle thing unfurling between them. Things were different in the light of day, outside in the cold.

Arthur catches Merlin watching him sometimes, though, dazed as if he’d lost something and thought he might have found it in Arthur, but Merlin always shakes himself out of it, ears an ever-present shade of red.

Driving home, Arthur tries to strike up conversation, wanting a distraction from the rabbit-fast thumping of his pulse that starts up whenever Merlin so much as looks at him. “So what do you do on Christmas Eve?”

“Muppet Christmas Carol,” Merlin answers instantly. He throws Arthur a suspicious look. “I don’t want to hear the words ‘I’ve never seen it’ come out of your mouth. Don’t say it.”

“Okay, I won’t say it.”

Silence reigns.

“I hate that for you,” Merlin says, jabbing an accusatory finger at him. “Well. You’re gonna love it, even if you don’t love it, because Mum does and that’s all that matters.”

“There’ll be nothing but praise from me,” Arthur promises, privately thinking Merlin’s conviction is adorable and trying not to look too smitten.

“We used to go for a walk, too, but that tradition kind of died out when Mum started having trouble with her knees.”

Arthur sneaks a glance at Merlin, whose quiet disappointment is palpable, and quickly makes up his mind. “We could do that,” he offers.

“Really?” Merlin asks, smile widening. “After lunch, then. It’s supposed to rain this morning.”

They’re inside by the time it starts raining, safely ensconced in blanket cocoons on the couch, laptops and snacks within easy reach. Merlin makes angry annotations in his poetry book and Arthur types his essay one word at a time, the boring slog of it only broken by Hunith making them hot chocolate before she goes to work.

“Have whatever you want for lunch,” she says, dropping a kiss on Merlin’s head.

“I’ll cook the turkey,” Merlin says cheerfully, and Hunith swats his arm with the sleeve of her coat.

They work a while longer, but eventually rain stops spattering against the windows and a weak winter sun peeks out through the clouds. It takes Arthur two minutes to notice Merlin’s furious scrawling has stopped, and he lowers his laptop screen to a hopeful expression on Merlin’s face.

Arthur opts for his hiking boots despite the rain, reasoning that they can be cleaned but Merlin would never forget it if Arthur tripped over in Merlin’s too-big wellies, and Merlin pulls on his ever-present brown coat, making a quick detour to the kitchen to snip off the latest fraying threads.

It’s almost twelve when they set off through the village, Merlin informing Arthur it’s zero degrees as they pick their way through puddles and paths mulchy with leaves. The overcast sky is immense around them, making the world feel like a snow globe.

Merlin chatters about his essay, which is somehow almost finished despite the fact that all Arthur’s seen him doing is annotating poems, and grouses about how he hasn’t even picked a question for his final deadline. He’s so engrossed in his rant that he trips over a tree root, and Arthur grabs his hand to pull him upright just in time.

“Oops,” Merlin says with an utter lack of remorse, looking down at Arthur’s gloved hand in his and squeezing. He doesn’t let go, starting to walk again and pulling Arthur with him, cheeks pink with cold and maybe something else, too. Arthur’s just glad they’re wearing gloves so Merlin can’t tell that his palms are starting to sweat, affection blooming warm in his chest.

Arthur has a vague suspicion of where Merlin’s taking him, but he pretends not to pay attention. When he sees the line of trees in the distance, he can’t pretend anymore, squeezing Merlin’s hand and saying, “At least we’re not fetching a sheep this time.”

Merlin grins toothily at him. His scarf is askew as always, more of a fashion accessory than something to keep him warm, and Arthur aches to fix it, but he doesn’t want to disturb the peace that’s settled between them, a mutual acknowledgement that something is going to happen and both of them holding their breath until it does.

The first snowflakes fall when they’re halfway across the field, mud thickening under their feet and Merlin’s cheeks getting rosier and rosier in the cold. The snow is light at first, rare snowflakes fluttering away on the wind, but by the time they reach the lake it’s falling in earnest, speckling the surface of the lake and sending deep ripples spiralling out over the water.

Merlin’s grinning, dropping Arthur’s hand to raise both arms to the sky, spinning around and laughing out loud.

“You’re such a child,” Arthur says, but he can’t help grinning too, Merlin’s joy permeating him like sunshine through the clouds. The snow won’t settle after all that rain, but no heart can deny the magic of snow, white flakes drifting down all around them and no one else around for miles. Arthur takes off his gloves, plenty warm after holding Merlin’s hand, and catches Merlin next time he spins, wrapping him up in a hug and turning his head against Merlin’s hair, soft and curling where it isn’t trapped under his beanie.

When they part, there’s still little space between them. As Arthur watches, a snowflake lands on Merlin’s bottom lip, melting as quickly as it landed, and he presses his thumb to it, a thrill going through him when Merlin’s lips part obediently.

Merlin makes a soft sound when Arthur replaces his thumb with his mouth, kissing Merlin with the tenderness this moment deserves, their lips gently moving together. Merlin clutches at his arms, keeping him close, and snow falls around them like stars.

It’s Merlin who pulls him back when Arthur draws away, who kisses Arthur firmly, insistently, like he never wants to do anything else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :) comments very appreciated!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for the wonderful response to the last update ahh :') hope you guys love this one too as it's my favourite chapter!

Of course, Merlin has to ruin the moment by speaking.

“Finally,” he says, eyes sparkling with mirth. “You really can’t take a hint.”

“You could have kissed me first,” Arthur points out. “The girl can do that nowadays, you know.”

“You’re insufferable,” Merlin says, but he can’t hold back a smile for long. He takes Arthur’s hand as they gaze out at the lake, its cool surface restless with snow.

“I don’t want things to change,” Arthur says suddenly. Merlin’s eyes go wide, and he hastily rephrases. “I don’t want _us_ to change. You’re my best friend; I can’t lose you over… this not working out.”

For once, he articulated himself terribly, but Merlin gets it. “We’ll still be us,” he says. “Things will be a little different — but we’ll figure it out, like always.” Serious moment over — for now — Merlin grins at him. “And I can kiss you whenever I want.”

“Hunith might disagree,” Arthur says, covering up his reaction to that, his insides turning into butterflies doing somersaults at the admission that Merlin had thought often about kissing him. For how long? Where? Arthur imagines their kitchen at uni, their most comfortable shared space, Merlin darting around him making tea as Arthur fries bacon and eggs, the brush of an arm as Merlin passes, or the way Arthur knows to duck as Merlin opens the cupboard for his favourite mug.

The post has been when they get home, hand in hand with flushed cheeks. Arthur picks up the parcels as Merlin unlocks the door, the house silent with Hunith still at work, and stiffens as he notices the handwriting of Uther’s personal assistant.

“My Christmas presents,” he explains flatly, kneeling by the Christmas tree and tucking his parcels in the corner out of sight. Merlin tuts at him and arranges them spread beneath the tree, mixed in with his own.

“We should put ours under the tree,” Merlin says. “If you got me anything, that is.”

“Don’t give me big eyes,” Arthur says, rolling his own as Merlin does his best Puss in Boots impression. “Of course I got you something.”

“Your dad has very feminine handwriting,” Merlin says, peering closer at the biggest parcel.

Arthur snorts. “Father probably doesn’t even know what’s inside. His personal assistant takes care of Christmas.”

Merlin lets the present drop, his face falling. “You’ve got to be joking,” he says, crawling closer to Arthur. “Not that I expect a lot from him, but…”

“I don’t expect anything,” Arthur says with a shrug. He’s long known that the parents of movies and TV are a far-away concept; it'd be weirder if Uther _did_ pick out his children's presents.

Upstairs, he retrieves Merlin and Hunith’s presents from the very bottom of his suitcase, placed there due to their bulk, and Merlin pulls his from the drawers under the bed.

“Did you hide yours?” Arthur demands. “I wouldn’t have opened it!”

Merlin precedes him down the stairs, careful not to drop anything. “Out of sight, out of mind,” he says cheerfully. Arthur suspects it was more to do with Merlin’s own incorrigible passion for gift-giving; if Arthur was more pliable, he’s sure Merlin would have succeeded in convincing him to open his birthday present early this year.

Once the presents are arranged to Merlin’s satisfaction under the tree, he says, “Mum finishes at four.”

Arthur, expecting the second half of the sentence to be ‘Let’s make out until then’, blinks when Merlin says, “Let’s clean the kitchen.”

“Sure,” he says, pretending he’d expected that all along. “What can I do?”

He loads the dishwasher while Merlin sweeps, and hoovers the lounge to be out of the way while Merlin mops the kitchen. It’s peaceful, mindless work, and distracts him from the fire thrumming under his skin whenever he thinks of going to bed with Merlin that night, with nothing to distract them from each other.

Arthur breaks into the cheese and crackers once they’re finished, carefully balancing his mug of tea alongside his plate, and Merlin opens the tin of Quality Street in lieu of making himself a real lunch. They sit next to each other on the couch, an obvious choice that nonetheless sends Arthur’s heart careening against his ribs when Merlin settles close beside him, thigh pressed up against Arthur’s.

“This is okay, right?” Merlin asks, only half-paying attention as he fiddles with the remote, scrolling through the available movies. Arthur hums in affirmation, focusing on his food as Merlin finally settles on ‘The Grinch’ and applies himself to eating all the strawberry creams from the tin of chocolates.

“Those are the worst ones,” Arthur says after a while, briefly extricating himself from Merlin to set his empty plate on the coffee table and snorting as Merlin tries to throw the wrappers into the bin across the room and fails miserably. Now his hands are free, Arthur puts an arm around Merlin’s waist, thankful that they’re near enough the same height and Merlin can cuddle into his side with little difficulty.

Merlin’s restless, though, shifting before long and watching Arthur, tightly coiled. Arthur holds back, wanting Merlin to start this, wanting Merlin to want it, and he isn’t disappointed when Merlin kisses him, closing his eyes and holding Merlin close. He tilts his head until the angle is better and draws the kiss into something more refined, pulling Merlin’s bottom lip between his and kissing him reverently.

They settle into it, into each other, and Arthur’s heart races not from nerves but from proximity, from the soft sound Merlin makes when Arthur runs a hand through his hair. It’s slow, unhurried, and there’s no panic when they break apart, Merlin rearranging his limbs and cuddling close against Arthur once more, head on his shoulder.

Arthur’s close to falling asleep when he hears Hunith’s car pull up in the driveway. He _doesn’t_ startle, contrary to Merlin’s snort of amusement when he has to shift, and they share a silent look.

Arthur is hesitant to articulate his concern about sharing this new intimacy blooming between them. It’s not that he doesn’t want anyone to know — he just hasn’t gotten around to texting Leon yet, is sure Merlin will have told Gwen, and is equally certain that no one’s told Gwaine, because their group chat would be full of demanding messages from _everyone_ by now.

Caught up in the soaring exhilaration of Merlin returning his feelings, his thoughts hadn’t lingered on how things would change in this house.

“Relax,” Merlin says, putting a hand on Arthur’s arm. Arthur exhales, consciously untensing his muscles and returning Merlin’s tentative smile.

“Sorry,” he says. “I’m just…”

“She won’t mind, you know,” Merlin says, careful, and Arthur feels guilty then, not wanting Merlin to feel like a secret he’s desperate to keep.

Arthur knows he could pull away, put some distance between them, and Merlin would understand. But he feels _safe_ here, knowing that Hunith loves Merlin just the way he is, that his coming out would have been greeted with nothing but warmth and acceptance — something Arthur could never expect in his own home. After so long in the dark, he doesn’t want to hide anymore. Even conscious of Merlin’s head tucked against his neck, their positions unmistakable — this kind of happiness isn’t something he wants to keep to himself.

By the time Hunith’s keys jingle in the door, he feels lighter, swallowing down the hitch in his breath as she closes the door behind her and hardly spares them a glance, just time enough to throw them a smile as she shrugs out of her coat and scarf.

“One would think you two do nothing but laze around all day,” Hunith says, turning the heating dial up and coming to lean in the doorway. Arthur fumbles for the remote and mutes the TV as the credits roll, catching the tail-end of a look passed between Hunith and Merlin, something secret and tender in it. It makes his heart stutter in his chest, the thought that it really could be this easy.

“We’ve been out,” Merlin protests. When he sits up, it’s to stretch with lazy, unhurried movements, unwrapping himself from Arthur so he can stand, their hands the last to separate. He’s saying something about the neighbours, Hunith nodding along, Arthur cataloguing each indulgent touch that marks them as different to when Hunith said goodbye this morning.

Merlin turns the TV off as he passes, and Arthur reflects wryly that he can recall nothing that happened in the film. What he can recall is the way Merlin tasted of artificial strawberries, and the softness of his hair under Arthur’s fingertips.

He follows Hunith and Merlin into the kitchen, putting the kettle on and getting mugs out of the dishwasher. Hunith, occupied with getting everything together to prep the turkey for tomorrow, smiles when she notices. “Merlin’s got you well trained,” she says.

“I didn’t drink tea until I went to uni,” Arthur says. “Think I’ve absorbed Merlin’s bad habits.”

“And he got them from me,” Hunith says fondly.

“ _My_ bad habits?” Merlin says in outrage, delayed reaction making the other two laugh. “At least I don’t leave dirty football socks on the coffee table!”

Arthur does his best to look innocent. “It’s part of my culture,” he demurs, winking at Merlin when Hunith’s back is turned.

He transfers his and Merlin’s tea to the table, leaving Hunith’s beside the turkey on the side, and sits down. Merlin’s crouching, checking their recently restocked potato stores, and Arthur prods Merlin in the back with his foot, toppling him over and earning a scowl.

“Bastard,” Merlin says, no venom in it.

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Counting potatoes,” Arthur says in jest, slightly put-out when Merlin nods like it was obvious. “What for?”

Merlin closes the drawer and stands up, leaning against the table in Arthur’s space, close enough to betray their new intimacy, nothing as heart-stopping as the moment Hunith opened the front door. After a moment, Merlin sits down beside him, saying, “Roast potatoes tomorrow aren’t gonna make themselves.”

“They’d probably do a better job than you,” Arthur says.

“Like you’re some great chef,” Merlin snarks back. “What were you gonna have on Christmas Day at uni, bacon and eggs?”

“No,” Arthur snaps. “Maybe,” he concedes a moment later.

Merlin cackles and Arthur hits him upside the head, reassured that some things never change, and Merlin will always be an idiot. Hunith comes back down, shooing them out of the kitchen so she can concentrate, and they end up in Merlin’s room, half-heartedly opening their laptops.

In the couple hours before dinner, Arthur finishes his first report and exhales exaggeratedly, drawing Merlin’s attention even as his earphones blast ABBA.

“One down, three to go,” Arthur says when Merlin turns his music down, smugly showing Merlin his Turnitin page.

Merlin pouts. “Gwen’s proofreading mine.”

“It’s Christmas Eve, you monster,” Arthur says, conveniently neglecting to mention that Leon proofread his.

“She’s already submitted two of hers,” Merlin says with a groan. “I’m just trying to borrow her work ethic.”

Arthur will never understand how the Smith family produced two children so different; he guarantees Elyan hasn’t even looked at his assignments yet, and Elyan’s in _third_ year, where mistakes tend to be permanent.

He leans back in his chair, having secured the desk and finding it a much more productive place to work than Merlin’s bed. When he opens his eyes, Merlin’s standing beside him, footsteps quieter than a cat.

“Proud of you,” Merlin says, seriously this time, and the kiss he presses to Arthur’s lips is comfortable and lingering and cut short by Hunith calling them for dinner.

* * *

Merlin was always bound to fall asleep during ‘The Muppet Christmas Carol’. Arthur registers Merlin’s head dropping to his shoulder with little surprise: Merlin had been listing towards him for the last half hour, influenced by the combination of mulled wine and an early morning, and now his breathing is deep and even.

Aside from an amused look shared with Hunith, Arthur isn’t inclined to do much about it, but Hunith turns the TV down suddenly. He turns to look at her, a question in his eyes and Merlin asleep between them.

“I just wanted to thank you, Arthur,” Hunith says, seeming to carefully consider each word.

“It’s me who should be thanking you,” Arthur says, confused and a little wary. Hunith doesn't seem the type to give the shovel talk — not like Vivian's father, who seemed like he'd been waiting his whole life to threaten a teenager with bodily harm — and Arthur hopes she knows by now that he'd die before hurting Merlin.

“Not just for this Christmas, though it’s been lovely having you. For being such a good friend to Merlin.” Arthur senses she wants to say more, and remains silent. “He… almost didn’t go to uni. It’s always been just the two of us, you see. He didn’t want to go so far away, and leave me here alone.”

Some part of Arthur doesn’t believe it — because Merlin had settled in so quickly, been so quick to make friends. Arthur wasn’t even the first friend he’d made — Gwen held that title — and they’d gotten off to a rocky start, bellowing at each other across Percival’s kitchen.

“He loves you,” Arthur says. Despite him stating the obvious, Hunith’s eyes crinkle at the corners when she smiles. “I — I’d like to think I could have had that kind of relationship with my mother. It seems perfect, to me.”

“Far from perfect,” Hunith says with a self-deprecating chuckle. “God knows we get on each other’s nerves, sometimes. But I wouldn’t give him up for the world.”

“It must have been hard, when he moved away,” Arthur says, bringing them back to Hunith’s original point.

“More than you can imagine.” Hunith pets Kilgharrah idly as he shifts on her lap. “He was so anxious, going away. He thought about dropping out.” Arthur holds his breath; Merlin had never told him that. “But things got easier by November. We’d already agreed no visits before Christmas, because I knew he’d get even more homesick, but when I did see him — he was _happy_ , excited to go back in January. He’d found his people, as they say.”

Arthur can’t think of anything to say. He’s ashamed that he never knew how much Merlin struggled in those first few months, embarrassed that he’d never looked past the cheerful exterior. Merlin had been drinking a lot — but then, they all had. Still, there must have been something he could have done.

He expresses this carefully. “I wish I had known,” Arthur says. “I wish I’d been able to help him more.”

Hunith is shaking her head. “You _did_ help him,” she says firmly. “You’ve been his friend, and a loyal one. That’s all a mother could ask for. When Merlin asked if we could have you here for Christmas — I was just thrilled I could give you something in return.”

“Merlin’s the first real friend I’ve ever had,” Arthur says, wanting to warm her the way she’s warmed him. “He changed everything for me. He’s the glue that keeps us all together.”

Uther had never encouraged attachment. Arthur had been so jealous, as a child captaining the football team, when some of his players would get lifts home with each other, talking excitedly of sleepovers and staying up all night watching movies, and he’d berated himself for being jealous, telling himself it was something he could never have. For a long time, he’d thought he was made to be close to no one, to be above such weakness as sentiment, proud to be as aloof as his father.

He dreads to think of what his life would be like if he didn’t have Merlin, if Merlin hadn’t struck up a friendship with Lancelot and Gwaine and ended up at the same party Arthur was invited to out of courtesy, having met the pair at football team tryouts the day before.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Hunith says, glowing with pride for her son. It makes Arthur’s heart ache, seeing in her what it’s like to have a mother. She unmutes the television with one last smile at Arthur, humming under her breath along with the songs. Merlin mumbles in his sleep and turns his face against Arthur’s shoulder, blindly seeking him out.

In the end, neither of them have to wake him. Tired of sleeping on Hunith’s lap, Kilgharrah jumps onto the back of the sofa and, apparently still unsatisfied, uses Merlin as a ladder down to the floor.

Merlin jerks awake in a panic, claws in his leg, and Arthur ducks to avoid being headbutted. Kilgharrah, unrepentant, starts washing himself, and Hunith laughs as Merlin says, “I wasn’t asleep.”

“Strange how someone can snore while they’re awake,” Hunith says to Arthur, who nods sagely.

“If anyone could, it’d be Merlin.”

“I’m right here,” Merlin protests, looking up in dismay as the film finishes.

“Better get Sleeping Beauty off to bed,” Hunith says. “I’ll finish up down here.”

Arthur leaves Merlin stretching on the couch as he gets himself a glass of water, thirsty from being trapped by Merlin for the last hour and gulping down his first glass before pouring a second to take upstairs. When he turns, Merlin is there, watching him, gaze lingering on his mouth. Arthur swallows against his impossibly dry throat and Merlin watches that too, only stirring from his trance when Arthur offers to get him water as well.

Their fingers touch when Arthur passes him the glass.

Arthur feels like he’s holding his breath all the way up the stairs, all the way through brushing his teeth and washing his face, through getting changed and re-tousling his hair in the mirror, even though Merlin knows exactly what Arthur looks like in the evening, in the morning, at his very worst. He switches the lamp on and gets into bed, not wanting to hover nervously until Merlin finishes in the bathroom, and he’s checking his phone when Merlin comes back and quietly shuts the door behind him.

Merlin, too, looks the same as he usually does, in his pyjama trousers and _oh_ , one of Arthur’s hoodies, too big in the shoulders and latest victim of Merlin’s chronic thievery. Arthur had known this would happen ever since Merlin told him to bring his warmest hoodies to Ealdor, but it takes on a breathless significance, now.

“Nice hoodie,” Arthur says to break the silence, relieved his voice doesn’t crack.

“That’s what you do when you have a boyfriend, isn’t it?” Merlin says, light tone trying to pass it off as a joke, but he’s wary, searching Arthur’s expression for a reaction. Arthur feels frozen, swallowing against the sudden lump in his throat. Maybe they don’t have to have a serious discussion to make it official. Maybe they can just… be.

“You might be right, for once,” Arthur says. He’s not oblivious to the blatant affection in his voice, but he’ll be damned if he can figure out how to help it. “Are you getting in or not?”

Merlin turns off the overhead light, leaving just the lamp beside his bed, and he’s golden when he slips in beside Arthur, single bed leaving them only inches from each other and plunged into smoky darkness when Merlin turns the lamp off, a decisive click ringing in the silence. Arthur’s gaze darts between Merlin’s eyes and his mouth in the slivers of moonlight, heartbeat suspended on a red string.

This time, he’s not sure who leans in first, kisses short and sweet as they relearn this new thing they’ve discovered, remembering that this is _allowed_ , now, an addictive force that brings their lips together again and again. It’s Merlin who licks at the seam of Arthur’s lips, coaxing him to open and sliding their tongues together, hot and intoxicating.

Arthur breaks the kiss to chase a better angle, leaning over Merlin and putting a thigh between Merlin’s legs, liking it better with Merlin underneath him, liking it better when Merlin slides a hand beneath Arthur’s hoodie and ghosts blunt fingernails against his spine. Arthur cups Merlin’s jaw, sucking on his bottom lip, wanting to bite and bruise and knowing too that he should hold back, learn Merlin a little better. They have all the time in the world, and yet Arthur can’t figure out why they haven’t been doing this forever, instead of sleeping or eating or breathing.

Merlin whimpers when Arthur kisses his neck, a ghost of a sound that makes Arthur want to do reckless things. He likes the line of Merlin’s throat, likes the way Merlin’s head tips back and his lips part, likes the way Merlin says his name in a trembling gasp and pulls Arthur back to his mouth.

He pushes up Merlin’s hoodie, smoothing a hand over the skin there, broad palm spanning Merlin’s ribs and feeling Merlin’s quick intake of breath. He has no intention of going any further, conscious of where they are and wanting to take his time with Merlin, if that day comes, but it’s enough to feel how Merlin kisses him with renewed vigour, goosebumps rising on his skin as Merlin’s fingers trace patterns on his back.

Arthur becomes aware that they’re moving against each other, body starting to take an interest in their long, languid kisses and Merlin’s body pliant under his, and he tears his mouth free with a gasp, panting against Merlin’s neck.

“Too much?” Merlin asks, hand coming up to card through Arthur’s hair.

“If we keep going, I’m gonna…” Arthur tries to be subtle when he shifts, conscious of Merlin feeling how much just kissing him affects Arthur, but he winces as he brushes up against Merlin... who’s half-hard, too. “Oh,” Arthur says, inexplicably pleased.

“Yeah,” Merlin says, and then, ruefully, “We’d better sleep.” His voice is hoarse, and he keeps touching his lips in wonder, like he can’t believe what they’ve been doing.

“What’s the time?” Arthur says, turning his head away so he doesn’t yawn in Merlin’s face. Truth be told, he could’ve fallen asleep an hour ago, but choosing between sleeping and kissing Merlin is no choice at all.

He doesn’t move as Merlin fumbles for his phone, stretching to the very tips of his fingers as he arches and wriggles under Arthur. Arthur enjoys it almost too much and grins down at him when Merlin scowls, but they both flinch from the light when Merlin finally turns his phone on.

“It’s Christmas Day!” Merlin exclaims, too-loud and Arthur presses a finger to his lips. He pretends the moment is ruined when Merlin licks his finger, but in reality it sends a bolt of heat down his body and he has to make an effort to calm himself down. “It’s Christmas,” Merlin repeats, quieter, smile wide and hopeful like a child’s.

Arthur could look at him forever. “Merry Christmas, Merlin,” he whispers.

“Merry Christmas, Arthur,” Merlin whispers back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just one chapter left now :'))


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this 5 weeks has gone by so fast! hope you guys enjoy the last chapter :)

In hindsight, Arthur should have asked what time Hunith and Merlin usually get up on Christmas Day, but he’s yanked from sleep by Merlin shaking his shoulder. Groaning, he grabs his phone and discovers it’s 9am. Could be worse.

“Stockings!” Merlin says gleefully, and he’s out of bed and zipping to the door before Arthur’s even got a good yawn in.

He sits up, bleary-eyed. “I’ve never seen you move so fast.”

Merlin comes back with two stockings, old and well-loved, and Arthur looks at him, confused.

“Here’s yours,” Merlin says, putting it on Arthur’s lap when Arthur doesn’t take it from him and sitting at the foot of the bed to empty out his own.

Arthur takes everything out one at a time, touched by the unexpected gesture. He unwraps the presents carefully, something he wouldn’t usually care to do. The bulge in the toe of the stocking turns out to be an orange, and Arthur holds it up with a questioning glance to Merlin.

“Tradition,” Merlin says, mouth already full and the bed scattered with orange peel.

“I didn’t expect this,” Arthur says, the only way he can articulate how moved he is that Hunith thought of him, even with something as small as stocking fillers. He breaks his own rule of never eating before brushing his teeth in the morning, flicking orange peel at Merlin when he steals a segment from Arthur’s.

They make it downstairs by ten, Arthur going ahead as Merlin knocks on his mum’s bedroom door. He puts the kettle on for something to do, fiddling with the strings of his hoodie and trying not to think of himself as intruding. The Pendragons always do Christmas morning together — they don’t hate each other _that_ much — but it was never the cosy family affair Arthur suspects it’ll be at the Emrys house.

Merlin thunders down the stairs in time to help carry the mugs of tea to the lounge, and Hunith isn’t far behind him, wearing a dressing gown over her pyjamas.

“Merry Christmas, Arthur!” she says cheerfully, accepting her tea.

“Merry Christmas,” Arthur returns. His nerves fade as he sits beside Merlin, who’s cross-legged on the floor and already has a present in his lap.

Thankfully, Arthur only has one present from his father, the other being from Morgana, who doesn’t go overboard and wouldn’t give him something expensive he’d be embarrassed to open in front of Merlin and Hunith. Uther’s personal assistant sent him cologne from Arthur’s favourite brand. Morgana got him a necklace, a fine gold chain, and Arthur slides it out of its protective paper and admires the pendant, subtly embossed with a roaring dragon.

“That’s beautiful, Arthur,” Hunith says.

“From my sister,” Arthur says, pleased. Morgana always did have impeccable taste. Upon looking over at Hunith, he realises the present she’s holding is from him, and doesn’t know whether he should watch her open it or not. He steals glances as he puts the necklace to one side.

Merlin, flipping through a book he just unwrapped, looks up as Arthur does when Hunith exclaims. “Oh,” Hunith says again, flushing in pleasure as she holds the jumper aloft. “It’s gorgeous, Arthur, thank you.”

Even though Merlin had given it the seal of approval, Arthur breathes out in relief that she really does like it. The only girl he’s ever shopped for is Morgana, and while he knows her better than anyone, he can’t really apply her taste to anyone else — he bought her throwing knives, for God’s sake.

The jumper is royal blue cashmere, soft as butter and embroidered here and there with tiny stars, the thread so gold against the blue that they seem to glow. Arthur had elected not to show Merlin the price, even now he sees it was worth every penny to see Hunith’s smile.

Merlin’s smiling too, and while his mum is distracted putting wrapping paper into the bin bag, he reaches over and squeezes Arthur’s hand. “Here,” he says when he lets go. “I’ve been waiting _weeks_ to give this to you.”

The present he puts in Arthur’s lap is wrapped so professionally it rivals Uther’s, and Arthur reaches for the present he got Merlin with a slight grimace. Merlin charitably doesn’t crack a smile, thumbing over edges that aren’t quite stuck down without comment.

After a brief standoff, Arthur unwraps his first.

It’s a book, he could tell without opening it, but the paper falls away to reveal _Tales of King Arthur & the Knights of the Round Table_, selected from Thomas Malory’s _Le Morte D’Arthur_. It’s something he’s spent his whole life hearing about, even more so when he went to uni and became best friends with Merlin, the irony never lost on them. Merlin, a big reader, was much more aware of the legends than Arthur, who’d never known quite where to start.

The book is beautiful, dark cover serving to highlight the gold filigree designs curling around the shining title. Arthur runs his fingers over the words and swallows, heart suddenly in his throat. They’d often talked about the stories, like they’re some extension of their friendship, past lives they don’t remember. This is something Arthur never would have thought to ask for, but that Merlin knew he’d love.

“Thank you,” he says into Merlin’s shoulder, fingers curling into Merlin’s back meaningfully, not quite ready to do more than hug him in front of Hunith.

When they part, Merlin pulls the last present into his lap, and Arthur and Hunith go quiet.

“I should’ve gone first,” Merlin says. “Now you’re both staring at me.”

Arthur also wishes Merlin had gone first, and then there wouldn’t be such suspense surrounding a present _Arthur_ chose. “Performance anxiety?” he quips.

“Never,” Merlin says, and starts unwrapping with relish. It isn’t difficult, because Arthur hasn’t wrapped it very well, so Arthur doesn’t have much time to prepare himself for when Merlin goes silent.

He’d bought Merlin a coat, finding it harder and harder to watch Merlin shivering in the thin brown coat he’d had for all of uni and refused to replace, sending any spare money he had back home and hardly indulging in anything besides the pub.

It’s a brown shearling jacket, with a cream lining and collar. It isn’t real leather and the lining is made from borg, because Arthur knows Merlin would never forgive him if the making of it had caused any egregious harm. The pockets are deep enough for Merlin’s tendency to accumulate things — pens, cool rocks, his third pair of earphones that month — and it’s warm enough for the northern winters, for dog walks and the biting chill of January in Ealdor.

Arthur bought it before they travelled home, obviously, but he can’t help but think that it’s too clearly the gift of a man in love.

Merlin’s ears are pink, and he rubs them self-consciously, apparently stunned into silence as he holds it up, strokes the faux-leather, runs his fingers across the soft, soft collar. Hunith’s eyebrows raise almost to her hairline before she seems to realise what her face is doing and clears her throat.

“My goodness,” she says, and her smile is helpless now, cheeks dimpling. In that moment, Arthur knows she understands the depths of his feelings for Merlin. “Arthur, that’s… wow.”

“Wow,” Merlin echoes. “Jesus, Arthur. I got you a _book_.”

“And I love the book,” Arthur says, feeling like he’s stood on the edge of a cliff. “Do you like it?”

“Do I _like_ it?” Merlin demands, and he finally turns to face Arthur properly with a thousand-watt smile. “Oh my God, it’s perfect!”

He collides with Arthur like he’d been shot out of a cannon, throwing his arms around him and squeezing him so tight Arthur coughs, barely having the presence of mind to clutch at Merlin in return.

“Really?” he says, hating himself the second it’s out of his mouth for sounding so insecure but not experienced enough with gift-giving to reassure himself. He hadn’t been sure the gesture would be well-received: choosing something like a coat for someone is more personal than the various football paraphernalia he’d picked out for the team, and he’d been equally concerned that Merlin might oppose the cost of it; Arthur certainly hadn’t bought it from Primark.

Their first Christmas at uni, he got Merlin sweets, same as everyone else, having only known them all three months. Things are a bit different, this year.

“Yes,” Merlin says, firm enough to erase all doubt. “It’s _gorgeous_. It goes with my boots. Did you have personal shopping lessons alongside your etiquette classes, or something?”

“Shut up,” Arthur says, horrified to feel his cheeks warm in a blush. Arthur Pendragon does not blush. “I was just born perfect, what can I say?”

“You boys,” Hunith says fondly.

Arthur’s finding it hard to look away from Merlin, whose gaze is sharp and dark with intent. He needs to kiss Merlin more than he needs water to live, but he can’t quite kick his brain into gear to make that happen. Merlin is the first to succeed.

“We’d better take these upstairs,” he says breezily. Arthur nods vigorous agreement.

He puts the book safely in his suitcase, certain that he won’t have time to read it until the Easter holidays. Merlin hangs the coat in his wardrobe, touching a reverent hand to the collar before closing the door, and they turn to each other at the same moment.

Arthur moves towards him, surer now but no less awed that he’s allowed this close. Merlin takes Arthur’s face in his hands and kisses him fiercely, thumbs brushing Arthur’s cheekbones as he coaxes Arthur’s mouth to open to his. Arthur opens, and he _wants_.

They make it halfway, collapsing and laughing between kisses on the unmade bed, and Merlin’s a vision above him, knees around Arthur’s waist and eyes bright as he leans down for another kiss. Arthur’s hand slips down to palm Merlin’s arse, squeezing, the first more intimate move either of them had made.

Merlin bites back a moan Arthur would have given his life to hear in its entirety, pressing himself into Arthur’s hands, and Arthur makes it his mission to hear that noise again.

* * *

By the afternoon, Hunith's parked them side by side on the sofa, the coffee table cleared of detritus and covered with vegetables instead. The potatoes are on Merlin’s side and he’s already gotten started by the time Hunith comes back with an assortment of knives and a second chopping board.

“Would you mind chopping the vegetables, dear?” Hunith asks.

“Not at all,” Arthur says, basking in the sweet smile of thanks she gives him. Once she leaves him alone with Merlin, he drops the faux-confidence. “Merlin—“

“You’ve never chopped a vegetable in your life, I know.”

“Frozen ones come pre-sliced,” Arthur mutters. He settles the chopping board across his knees and grabs a carrot.

“You’ll probably have to cut the swede on the floor, they’re right bastards,” Merlin says conversationally. His peeled potatoes are all smooth angles where Arthur’s would have been jagged edges, and Arthur is grateful it wasn’t his job. Merlin demonstrates with minimal teasing and Arthur sets to his task, half-listening to Hunith humming in the kitchen.

After the carrots, he helps Merlin with the potatoes, chopping them into appropriately-sized chunks and ducking as Merlin launches potato peel at him, narrowly missing Arthur and landing on the sofa.

“You bought me this jumper,” he says reproachfully, stifling a laugh as he pinches the peel between finger and thumb and drops it into the bin bag at their feet.

“I did,” Merlin says, and his eyes track hungrily across Arthur’s shoulders and chest in a way that has Arthur shifting in his seat. “ _That's_ good taste.”

Arthur can’t argue — not when Merlin’s looking at him like that.

The Christmas dinner comes together, bit by bit. After the potatoes and other vegetables are chopped, Merlin joins his mum in the kitchen, leaving Arthur to bring through the chopping boards and various knives and load the dishwasher, ducking carefully around the two of them. He sits at the table with his laptop, on hand to help if needed but staying out of the way, and he makes everyone tea once all the food is in the oven.

They sit down to dinner at about three, Hunith having changed into the jumper Arthur got her and the boys swapping sweatpants for jeans. Hunith pours the drinks, knowing as well as Arthur does that Merlin can’t be trusted with wine, and raises her glass.

“To our honoured guest,” she says, any irony defused by the warmth in her tone.

Merlin’s socked foot nudges Arthur’s ankle under the table and stays there, a breathless point of contact just for them. But Arthur’s glad Hunith knows, glad he came home with Merlin, glad, for the first time, for Christmas and all the sentiment it entails.

There’s a deeper connection between the three of them at the table, something that makes Arthur feel safe, and wanted, and loved.

It feels like family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much to everyone who read along and to those who will read in the future!! i hope you loved it as much as i loved writing it <3

**Author's Note:**

> i'd really appreciate any comments if you enjoyed this!! you can find me on tumblr at starboykeith.tumblr.com and twitter at twitter.com/starboysheith c:


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